Free Robin Williams - When the Laughter Stops 1951-2014 by Emily Herbert Page B

immediately obvious that he was exactly right for the role: anarchic and a little bit crazy, you could easily believe he was actually an alien.’
    ‘My job stopped being about remembering lines or moves, but to keep from laughing,’ says Henry Winkler, the actor who played The Fonz, and who remembered it well. ‘And yet Robin was so shy it was hard for him to speak. He did ask me, “After a day of this, how do you perform at the Comedy Store?” I told him, “After this, you really don’t have the energy to perform at night.”’
    The Season Five episode ‘My Favorite Orkan’ (a reference to another TV series,
My Favorite Martian
) was broadcast in February 1978 and the viewers loved it. Admittedly, it was a little far-fetched: it involved an alien, Mork from the planet Ork, coming down to earth and trying to kidnap Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard) as a human specimen. The Fonz steps in and saves Richie and it is then revealed that Richie has been dreaming… to begin with, at least. When everyone involved absolutely loved it,the ending was changed so that, instead, it showed Mork wiping everyone’s memories. Marshall was delighted: ‘We said, “No, it’s not a dream; it’s real. It’s another series!”’
    It certainly was. And so
Mork & Mindy
, the show that would almost overnight turn Robin Williams into a household name, was born. The premise was that Mork (who has been grown in a test tube and drinks by using his finger) has been sent to Earth by Orson in a small, egg-shaped spaceship to observe humans. Orson wanted to get rid of him because humour is not permitted on Ork. Once down on Earth – he ends up in Boulder, Colorado, a place later to become the site of tributes to Robin – he dresses in a suit but puts it on backwards. He then encounters Mindy (Pam Dawber), who has just split from her boyfriend and takes him to be a priest, until he reveals who he actually is. She promises to keep his secret and to help him to study Earth. There is a flashback in which Mork tells her about when he came to Earth previously and The Fonz arranges for him to date Laverne De Fazio (from
Laverne & Shirley
, one of many crossovers between
Mork & Mindy
and other television series – Henry Winkler and Penny Marshall appeared).
    Mork moves in with Mindy, much to her father Fred’s chagrin (although her grandmother Cora, with whom she works in Fred’s music store, likes him) but the local sheriff, Deputy Tilwick, who thinks Mork is unhinged, attempts to oust him. In the second episode, Mork agrees to leave but his plans are disrupted when he gets bezurb(drunk) on ginger beer and also reveals to Fred that he is actually an alien. The moving-out theme continues in the third episode when Mork has an attack of conscience after losing Mindy a date and, while looking for somewhere to stay, he encounters the eccentric Exidor, of which more below. In the next episode, Mindy tells Mork he must experience love to know what it is to be human – although this is clearly going to result in a ‘will they?/won’t they?’ situation. Mork takes her at her word and falls in love with a mannequin named Dolly. By now it was clear why Robin was so right for the role: a child-like innocence was needed to pull this one off. But this is the episode in which Mork and Mindy kiss and the future is pretty clear.
    The next episode, which sees a second kiss between the two of them, introduces the character of Susan (of which more below), who tries to make off with Mork in revenge for Mindy stealing her boyfriend in high school. But she doesn’t succeed. Matters improve with Fred, who saves Mork’s life after a newspaper reporter turns up looking for proof of alien life. Mork next pretends that he can predict the weather, prompting Mindy to tell him never to lie (‘splinking’), after which he resuscitates the despicable landlord Arnold (of which more below.) The next episode sees Mork in jail with Exidor after falling for a sob story –